Parkerson, Donald H.

Dr. Donald H. Parkerson is an Associate Professor of History at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, where he teaches economic and quantitative history. He has a doctorate in American History from the University of Illinois at Chicago and was the Assistant Director of the Family and Community History Center at the Newberry Library. He has served on the Board of Editors for Social Science History and is the Author of The Agricultural Transition in New York State (Iowa State University Press, 1995).

Emergence of the Common School in the U.S. Countryside

1998 0-7734-8349-7
This study examines the social, historical roots of the primary school movement in the rural north at mid-19th century and the critical support that a new class of commercial farmers provided for that important social experiment. Drawing on theories of class development and the writings of early school reformers, teachers and educators, they demonstrate that the curriculum and pedagogy of the common school reflected the values of the emergent market economy. Examining two primary agricultural classes (commercial farmers and yeomen), the study finds dramatic differences in school attendance, marital fertility, and family structure. Uses a variety of primary sources including NY State census population manuscripts of 1855 and 1865 linked to the agricultural census; US Census of 1860 examined from household, individual, township perspectives; 19th century agricultural press; farmers' diaries and letters; teacher pedagogies and primary readers from the period. This work links the methodology and substantive focus of social and educational history to the literature on the market revolution in the US.